


The Minor Fall, the Major Lift

by missmichellebelle



Series: Through the Kaleidoscope [9]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pianist, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Romance, pianist levi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:29:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5217968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can’t just ignore me until I go away, I’m not—”</p><p><i>I’m not going away</i>, is what he no doubt intended to say.</p><p>Except that he is.</p><p>He is going away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Minor Fall, the Major Lift

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive!
> 
> I'm so sorry, you guys. I really didn't mean to leave you on a cliffhanger for so long, but between finishing my fic for the SNK Big Bang, working an insane amount, and getting rather sick, this chapter took it's fucking time.
> 
> but it's here now. <3
> 
> I will say that I do have other projects planned and that I'd like to start working on, so installments to this universe are going to be much less frequent than they were at first. .-. but hopefully leaving this where I leave it at least makes the wait more bearable.
> 
> title unabashedly ripped out of the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" (although I prefer the Rufus Wainwright version myself).

Erwin calls a total of five times before Levi answers. And the only reason he does eventually answer is because the last call is preceded by a text that threatens showing up a Levi’s door.

He really needs to move.

(Except…)

“You’re in a tabloid,” is the first thing Erwin says, before Levi can so much as mutter a resigned greeting. Not that he was planning to. He would have been perfectly content waiting Erwin out in silence.

“I’m in a _what?_ ” Levi asks, not sure he heard correctly, as he walks from his living room to his kitchen and back again at a fairly rapid pace. But he’s _not_ pacing.

He’s not.

“A tabloid. Not a very known one, I’m afraid. Not even in print, just some internet drivel, pretty sure one of the side articles was speculation about the president being an alien of some sort—”

“Is there a point to all this?” Levi cuts in, tone weighted with a sigh. He pauses long enough to rub his temples and thinks that maybe dealing with Erwin outside of his door would have been the preferred option.

“That you were in a tabloid at all. Not that I had any question about your status here in New York, you’ve sold out every performance you’ve held, but pianists aren’t generally the sort of people who—”

“Is that all?” Levi doesn’t have time for this, he—

He looks at his piano. The sight of it makes his stomach tight—he hasn’t played in four days, and he feels a mixture of anxiety and guilt whenever he’s near the instrument.

Levi swallows and closes his eyes.

“Aren’t you at all curious what the picture is?” Erwin presses, and there’s a knowingness to his voice that doesn’t sit right with Levi.

Honestly, Levi is a little curious. He’s not often out in public, and when he is, it’s to perform or to grocery shop. Neither are particularly noteworthy occasions. It’s not likely the tabloid is reporting on how much bleach he purchases.

The interval silence is too long, apparently, because Erwin goes on without any prompting from him.

“It was you helping a rather handsome young man into a cab, if the slight angle of his face is anything to go off of,” Erwin explains, and Levi’s entire body goes cold. “And I can’t help but wonder what you’re doing out and about, helping handsome young men into cabs.” There’s a press to Erwin’s words. Not the sort that accompanies the jealous tone of an almost lover from the past, but the unpleased one of a manager and PR agent who has been left out of the loop.

There’s a throb in Levi’s chest from the thought of a photo he hasn’t even seen. A photo of him and Eren, out to dinner, before… Well, before whatever glass ball they’d been living in had fallen to pieces around them.

Four words, and it was like the bird in Levi’s chest that had just taken a leap for its first attempt at flight had failed. Had fallen. Had mangled its wings and been left there on the ground to die.

Because Eren is moving to California, and Levi still has no idea what to do about it.

“In any case, I’ve contacted the tabloid and threatened legal action if they don’t remove the article,” Erwin continues on, tone casual once more as if they are discussing today’s stock market prices. “How’s the album going?”

Levi thinks of the last line of music he wrote. Of the pained, broken sound of it. Of all the scratched out lines and furious scribbles that are still strewn on top of his piano, a mess that he, for once, can’t bring himself to clean up.

“It’s going,” Levi replies tersely, and promptly hangs up.

*

He sits on his couch and drinks tea in the near-darkness, his piano and the knowledge of how he’s not playing it looming over him like another physical presence in the room. He should play. He knows he should play, has known it for days, and there’s a well of desperation that he’s fucking up his entire _life_ in his stomach that makes his knuckles tight and his legs tense, but he knows he won’t make any move toward making it better. That he won’t play. That there’s something much heavier, weighing him down and making his knees lock and his body buckle every time he even thinks of moving.

It’s been five days, and the silence of an afternoon full of busy cleaning that circumvents his piano like there’s an actual forcefield around it has bled into the silence of the evening. Soon, Levi will eat, and then he will go to bed and not sleep.

One night in his bed, and Levi is convinced his sheets still smell like Eren. Even after washing them six times.

At 7-o’clock, there’s a knock on his door, and Levi’s hand tightens around his now empty teacup, but he doesn’t get up.

“Levi?” Eren calls, and his voice fills Levi with a sort of painful panic that he’s not quite sure how to handle. That he’s not even _familiar_ with. “I—”

 _Don’t say you’re sorry_ , Levi thinks, closing his eyes, as if that will somehow make Eren go away. He’s heard Eren apologize enough. They felt empty then, and they still will, now.

Especially when Levi still doesn’t know _what the fuck to do_. He’s not even sure he’s mad, or that Eren _needs_ to be forgiven. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling. He stares at his walls, and cleans nearly every inch of his apartment, and refolds his laundry for the fourth time, and doesn’t know how to describe the heavy weight that’s settled over him. Doesn’t know the words for the way it aches, or how it sometimes stings, or how it twists the music flowing from his fingers into something dark and sharp and jagged.

“I know you said you needed space,” Eren finally continues, and there’s a light _thump_. Like maybe his body has sunken against the door, or he’s landed his palm against it. Maybe rested his forehead to the painted paneling.

Levi tells himself to stop thinking about it.

“That you needed time to think, and I… I’m trying to respect that.”

Levi winces, because if he doesn’t, he’ll smile. Eren isn’t the best with self restraint, after all. Levi’s still amazed that he got up and left when Levi had asked him to.

“But when you’re ready, I’d like to. Well, to explain, I guess. As best as I can.” Another thump, and then a rhythmic tapping—Eren, absently drumming his fingers against the door. “I… I hope you’re doing okay. I haven’t heard you play in a few days, and I just. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.” His doorknob jingles, and Levi’s body goes tense, like he might vault out of his balcony doors at any second.

Like he’s some sort of spooked, wild animal, and he presses his hand over his eyes and wonders how he got this way.

“I brought you dinner,” Eren finishes, voice softer—if Levi wasn’t straining to hear him (and hating himself for doing so) he wouldn’t have heard it. Another sound—something dragging—and then a reluctant, “Good night.”

Levi waits thirty full minutes before he goes to his front door and opens it. There’s a bag of take-out resting on his doorknob—the Chinese place that Eren likes so much, that Levi’s grown fond of as a result even though he pretends to hate it.

He debates leaving it there, and then tells himself to stop acting like a child, grabbing the plastic bag before hastily re-locking the door and retreating into the tainted sanctuary his apartment has become.

He eats the food standing at his kitchen counter, and the ache flares up, sharp and hot again, making every bite bland and awful.

*

Eren comes back three days later, in the afternoon, and his knocking is a bit more insistent.

It shouldn’t surprise Levi, as he sits on his couch and stares at the wall. Eren’s promise of patience, it seems, only lasts for so long.

“This isn’t going to work,” Eren says through the door, his voice less placating than it had been on his last visit. It’s more… Hostile. Levi can’t help but wonder what sparked the change. “You can’t just ignore me until I go away, I’m not—”

 _I’m not going away_ , is what he no doubt intended to say.

Except that he is.

He is going away.

“I’m not going to give up,” is what he says instead after faltering. After realizing the lie that almost came out of his mouth. “And you can’t run away from me, or from this.”

He leaves more food that night. Levi still eats it, unable to just leave the food there or throw it away, even though it tastes like nothing to him. He considers it, every single time, but he always sees Eren’s face then, sees his well-meaning smile and hopeful eyes, and doesn’t want to imagine the way he would look if he saw Levi hadn’t taken the food. If he’d found out the food had ended up in the trash.

 _Maybe he deserves that_ , a darker part of him advises, and maybe if Levi was a more vindictive person, more cruel, he’d give in to it.

But the idea of hurting Eren, on _purpose_ , doesn’t do anything to soothe his own aches and pains.

No… Even the idea of it just makes everything worse.

*

The pain, he realizes, is familiar. Levi knows that he’s hurt, but he knows there’s more depth to it than that. He’s been hurt before, physically and emotionally, and it has never left him feeling as lost as it does now.

The closest thing he has to this situation is the night Erwin had gently touched his shoulder and explained why whatever it was they were doing had to stop. Back when Levi had been susceptible to the world, more innocent. Back when he’d been young, and had stars in his eyes that have long since faded.

It had hurt then, too. It had hurt, the way Erwin had pushed him away, had shuffled him around and removed himself through as many intermediaries as possible. For months, strangers had handled Levi, and he’d almost ran away and left it all behind. It had reminded him so much of losing his mother, of being shuffled from foster home to foster home. But it was what he’d been striving to for what felt like his entire life, and he knew no other dreams. What would he do, if he didn’t play piano?

So he stayed until the hurt settled, and he’d moved on and left it behind.

It had hurt like… Abandonment. Like being unwanted. Like betrayal.

Is that what he’s feeling now?

*

Eren comes every day, and every day he brings food. It’s always takeout, though—he never cooks, and for that, Levi is thankful.

He doesn’t like the idea of eating Eren’s cooking and having it turn to ash on his tongue.

But Levi continues to keep the door closed to him, and continues not to speak to Eren no matter how desperate an attempt is made. A part of Levi is angry with him—all Levi wanted was some time, and some space, and Eren can’t even give him that? Some time to think, to sort everything out, to…

To wait until Eren gives up, and fades away, just like he intends to do, anyway.

And he ignores the part of him that waits for those few minutes every day he gets to hear Eren’s voice, and the way it hurts and helps simultaneously. That, too, will fade away with time, Levi’s sure.

Maybe, if Levi knew Eren better—well, a lot of things would be different, certainly. And this whole situation is just another harsh neon highlight of how very little he _does_ know. But either way, if Levi knew him better, maybe he wouldn’t be surprised that after two weeks of radio silence, of being ignored, that Eren would be driven to desperate measures.

Which, apparently, include showing up, unannounced, on Levi’s balcony.

The sudden, sharp rapping on the glass startles Levi so much that he splashes lukewarm tea onto his pant leg. He hardly notices, though, seeing as his full attention is on the winded, sweating, wild-looking boy with his hand pressed against the pane. They stare at each other, and Levi doesn’t move.

Eren’s fingers tap agains the glass, his shoulders heaving, and he rubs at his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Open the door, Levi.” His voice is breathy, and it’s the final piece to make Levi realize why seeing Eren on his balcony is so fucking alarming.

Eren lives three floors down.

Which means Eren somehow scaled the fucking apartment building.

Levi is standing before he can tell himself not to. The balcony door has a latch that Levi never uses, and Eren doesn’t _need_ Levi to open it, but he waits for him to, anyway. He waits for Levi to open it and yank him inside, like Eren isn’t standing on a perfectly good, fenced in, terrace balcony but rather like he’s standing precariously on a window ledge.

“Are you out of your _mind?_ ” Levi hisses as the balcony door rattles shut behind Eren.

“You weren’t answering your door,” Eren responds, eyebrow furrowed, like that’s fucking reason enough to climb up the side of a building.

“I could have not answered this door, you shit head,” Levi reminds him.

“I thought it would be harder if I was staring at you and there was no way for me to leave.” Eren’s body shudders, and it makes Levi realize that he still has him by the elbows. That he’s probably the only thing keeping Eren from collapsing right there. “Could I get some water?”

“You’re a fucking imbecile,” Levi growls at him, tugging him into the kitchen. He deposits Eren against the counter like he’s some inanimate object prone to falling over, and then goes to fetch a glass. “You could have killed yourself.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t—thanks.” Eren drinks over half the glass in one rapid round of chugging. “Plus, I rock climb all the time, it wasn’t all that different.”

Levi stares at him, hard and incredulous, and then yanks the empty glass from his hand and is surprised he doesn’t shatter it with the force he deposits it in the sink.

“Out,” he instructs. “This is harassment.”

“This isn’t harassment!” Eren yelps as Levi tries to tug him towards the front door, but Eren plants his feet and doesn’t budge. “Okay, maybe, but it’s—” Eren growls, upsetting his hair again, the drying sweat making it stick up this time where his fingers have passed through it. “If I leave, are you ever going to open the door again?” Eren looks at him, the hot-tempered gleam gone from his eyes and replaced with something more akin to desperation. “Honestly?”

Honestly, Levi’s not sure. But… Probably not. He would either wait for Eren to give up, or… Well. He’s probably overdue for a new address, right?

“That’s what I thought,” Eren says softly after Levi responds with nothing but silence. “Look, I… I guess I get it, if you’re done with… With this.” He bites his lip and looks away. “With me. I guess I deserve that. But if that’s the way we’re doing this, do I at least get to explain first?” Eren meets his eyes again. “Do I at least get the respect of an actual break-up rather than you trying to haze me out of your life?”

“You mean _phase_?” Levi corrects, and Eren gives him a look.

“Levi.”

He’s not sure if he’s ever heard Eren sound so serious before, and it gives him pause. It’s not that Levi isn’t taking this seriously, it’s just that…

A break-up. The word rolls Levi’s stomach, makes him swallow, _hard_. A break-up is so…

Final.

It’s an end.

Is that what Levi wants?

Again, his silence speaks for him, and the next thing he knows, Eren is tugging him down onto the couch. He keeps his distance, but he doesn’t let go of where he’s taken Levi’s hand, even though Levi puts no effort into trying to hold Eren’s back.

“I like you,” Eren starts with, like a little boy on an elementary school playground, and Levi blinks at him, passively. “I… I _really_ like you, and I have for months, and I’m pretty sure you like me, too.” Eren stares at their hands, glancing up at Levi shyly like they haven’t spent afternoons with their tongues down each other’s throats. “I’m not going to apologize for that, or for acting on my feelings.” His eyebrows pinch. “I never have, and I never will, and I don’t plan on starting now. I’m rash, and impulsive, and it gets me in a lot of trouble sometimes, but… That’s who I am. That’s how I do things.” He averts his eyes again, thumb rubbing at the back of Levi’s hand a little too harshly, but Levi doesn’t speak against it.

“And it was driving me _crazy_ , wanting you and not having you, and so I did what I always do and I kissed you without really thinking of the consequences because at the time the only consequence was that you might not kiss me back, and I was 60-40 on those odds, which are pretty good, in my opinion, and…” Eren pauses, whether because he finally noticed he’d been rambling and picking up speed or to take a breath, Levi’s not sure. Has never been sure.

“And maybe I was doing what you’re doing now. I thought that maybe if I ignored the problem, it would go away, and I could forget about it. Or maybe I thought that we’d have a few months and maybe things wouldn’t work out, or we wouldn’t get serious, or—shit, n-not to say that we _are_ getting serious, unless, you know, that’s what you want.” Eren’s eyes flash up and down, desperate and scared, and Levi remembers that he’s the adult here. Eren’s hand is twitching against his, frantic with nervous energy, and Levi feels like he’s holding a very fragile, very fluttery, baby bird.

Maybe it hadn’t died, after all.

“Eren,” Levi finally says, because if he doesn’t, he has no idea where Eren’s words are going to keep taking him. And it’s amazing, how just saying his name seems to anchor him. Levi wouldn’t have even noticed if he couldn’t physically feel the hand against his stop shaking, if he couldn’t watch Eren take the deep breath.

“In my last year of college, I did an internship with this start-up here in New York. It was in this small little shoebox of a room with, like, four other people, and while originally I’d been taken on as basically a free PA, I ended up writing most of the code for a game demo they had plans on releasing.” Eren’s fingers twitch again, and Levi finally grabs them back.

 _Stay still_ , he wants to say, even though the idea of Eren being still is… Impossible, really.

“It, uh, did really well…” Eren smiles, but it’s not the one Levi is used to seeing. It’s smaller, more subtle. Proud. “And the start-up got bought by this larger developer based in California. They, uh, they asked me to go with them. Offered me a full-time position. But my dad threw a fit, basically. Demanded that I go to grad school. I guess he was hoping I’d realize how stupid being a game designer is, that I’d be something more respectable, I don’t know…” The smile breaks, and cracks, and Levi’s mouth presses into a line to keep him from outright scowling.

Eren’s father has been some shadowy figure, rarely and briefly mentioned, so much so that Levi has never really given him much thought. Eren speaks more of his sister, and even then, it’s never enough for Levi to be able to gleam anything meaningful from.

He never mentions his mother.

And Levi has never pushed on any of those subjects. Eren has so few walls, it seems unfair to try to knock down the ones that do exist, especially given how many Levi himself has.

“But, they, uh, they said there would always be a place for me there.” Eren gives a pitiful little shrug. “That when I finish grad school, they’ll be waiting for me, because the game is as much mine as it is theirs and they wouldn’t be doing it justice if I wasn’t involved in finishing it.”

Everything else aside—their relationship, Levi’s feelings, the fact that Eren hid this—it’s an amazing opportunity. It’s hard for Levi to grasp completely, because he never did schooling in the traditional sense, but he equates it to the Sydney Opera House offering him a soloist position and him declining it, but them leaving it open for him, anyway.

Which is not something that would ever happen.

“And when is that?” Levi asks, voice quiet, and Eren perks up, finally. It occurs to Levi that Eren saw this conversation ending in one way, and given Levi’s behavior, he can’t really blame him.

“What?” Eren blinks at him, owlishly.

“When do you finish and leave?” Levi stares down at their hands. He doesn’t remember lacing their fingers together.

Eren’s face screws up in concentration.

“Uh…” he mumbles under his breath (it sounds like he’s counting months). “Thirteen-ish months? I leave next August.”

Next August.

Over a year away.

Levi almost wants to laugh.

“A year?” Levi asks, and can’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t leave for a _year_?” Levi clarifies.

“I mean, I haven’t bought tickets or anything yet, but basically.”

“And you had to tell me right after our first date?” Levi stares Eren down, steadily. “And act like you were leaving a few days later?”

Eren shrugs, looking uncomfortable, and Levi can see the beginnings of color coming to his cheeks.

“I just…” Eren glances at him and away again. “I felt really guilty, all right? That was a really nice date and you went way out of your comfort zone to do something nice for me and I felt like an asshole and— _why are you laughing_?” Eren cries, looking both embarrassed and frustrated.

Because he can’t help it. Levi physically can’t help it, which is not a feeling he is all that familiar with. He pinches the bridge of his nose and laughs, and it feels like a wave of relief crashing over him again and again and again.

A year.

“Levi.”

He’s not exactly the sort of person to put thought into the expiration dates of things, but Levi doesn’t even plan his professional life that far in advance, much less his personal one. Who’s to say what will happen in a year?

“Levi, you’re freaking me out.” Eren’s hand is suddenly warm and solid on his shoulder, and Levi’s rolling, silent laughter settles into fading chuckles. When it finally dies and he’s wiping at the corner of his eye, Eren’s fingers touch his cheek and their eyes meet again. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh that much,” Eren says, voice tinged with awe. “It was a little terrifying.”

“Brat,” Levi bites, and Eren smiles at him, but it’s quick to flicker and die.

“So we’re…” he hesitates, chewing his lip, “we’re okay?” The word is unsure and unsteady, and Levi takes a moment to process it. It’s easier, now that he doesn’t feel so weighted down, but that doesn’t stop it from being a heavy question.

“You can tell me things,” Levi decides to say, staring at Eren’s chin, his neck, his shoulder, his wrist. He finds it difficult to make eye contact, all of a sudden. _I want you to tell me things_. “I don’t want you to feel the need to keep things from me.”

Eren’s fingertips brush at the apple of his cheek.

“I wasn’t keeping it from you on purpose… Well, not at first. And after that, I was kind of… Keeping it from both of us.” Eren huffs out something that sounds like a laugh but isn’t quite right. “I’ve been dodging their emails since I kissed you.”

Levi scowls at him.

“Don’t fuck up your future on my account,” Levi bites back.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eren mutters, his fingers finally finding the short hairs of Levi’s undercut. He’s suddenly much closer than Levi remembers him being, but Eren’s always been good at sneaking into his space so steadily that Levi doesn’t even notice until he’s completely integrated himself. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Is that s—”

But Eren doesn’t wait for permission, or a snarky comeback. Just kisses him, soft and hesitant and barely there, and then sighs softly when he pulls back, touching the tips of their noses together before giving them more space.

“I want to tell you things,” Eren says before Levi can even think of dragging him back in, of making the kiss last much longer. “I think that’s the problem. That I want to tell you everything, but I don’t… I don’t want you to get sick of me.” His voice tilts and warbles in a remarkably vulnerable way that makes Levi’s throat clench up.

Because it’s a strange thing, realizing somebody else has the same exact insecurities that you’re currently facing.

He’s been waiting, even without fully acknowledging it, for Eren to eventually get sick of him and all his shit and baggage.

It’s a startling novelty that almost has Levi laughing again that Eren was waiting for the exact same thing.

Yet, even knowing that, even knowing the sort of insecurity if plagues it with, Levi can’t qualm Eren’s fears. Because he knows he’s that sort of person. Levi gets sick of people, even the people he cares about the most. It’s never personal, and is one of the reasons that he only deals with his friends in small, infrequent doses, so that he doesn’t do something rash that would most certainly ruin a relationship past the point of no return.

He doesn’t know how Eren hasn’t fallen victim to it yet, given how much time they’ve spent together since they’ve met. Hardly a day has gone by, these past two weeks aside, that they don’t see each other in some capacity, and normally that capacity is hours at a time. It’s like waiting for lightning to strike—inevitable, and horrible, and something Levi really doesn’t want to happen.

“Come here,” he says, instead, and awkwardly opens his arms, and it’s not surprising at all that Eren doesn’t hesitate to scramble into them. Under Levi’s hands like this, he’s so warm and tangible and _here_ , and Levi lets his dignity fall away for just a moment to close his eyes and pull Eren even closer.

“Tell me everything,” he murmurs into Eren’s temple, and instead of bubbling over like a fountain, Eren just nods, and Levi can feel his fingers tighten their hold against the fabric of his shirt.

“Right now?” Eren mumbles against his neck, and Levi revels in glide of his hand up Eren’s back, as it brushes over every ridge in his spine, and rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Although, Levi thinks he could probably listen to Eren talk for hours right now. He has two weeks of trying to bleach the sound of Eren’s voice from his mind to make up for, after all.

“I have a better idea.” Eren sits back on his heels, and Levi frowns at him. It’s not often that he offers affection of that calibre, and he’s surprised that Eren isn’t taking it for granted.

And maybe his ego is bruised a little bit, because of that. Maybe.

“You haven’t played in weeks.” Eren meets his eyes, and it would almost feel like scolding if there wasn’t a sense of understanding to his words. “Don’t deny it, I’ve been listening for it.” Eren bites his lips. “It was because of me, right?” He looks guilty, and Levi scoffs.

“Don’t blame yourself for my mistakes.”

“Levi, you play _every_ day. So the fact that you haven’t played in the last two weeks…” Eren shakes his head, and then reaches forward and takes Levi’s hand. “Will you play something now?”

He balks at the suggestion. Full out _balks_. Because it’s so much easier to ignore his lapse so long as he doesn’t touch his piano, but the longer he goes without playing, the worse it gets. The worse he starts to feel when he looks at it, or how even the sight of his own hands makes him feel sick with guilt.

“I don’t—” he starts to say, but then Eren is tugging him up from the couch. He growls in annoyance. “Are we just done talking about this, then?” He snaps, trying to delay the inevitable. Eren’s determination, it seems, is an unstoppable force.

Eren pauses, looking down their linked hands at him.

“I want to keep dating you,” Eren states, boldly and simply in a way that Levi knows he never could. “I want to be with you, and when the year is up, if we’re still together, we cross that bridge when we come to it.” He tips his head to the side. “And if you want to break-up instead, that’s your choice, but I can’t promise that I’m going to take it lying down.” His lips quirk up in an self-deprecating smirk. “I’ve never been too good at that.”

No, Levi doesn’t want to break up. And a year is… A year is a long time. A lot can happen in a year. A year ago, he didn’t even know Eren existed. A year ago, he never thought he’d be learning how to play OneRepublic songs because a boy on his couch asked him to.

“Okay,” Levi says, and it feels like somewhere, an hour glass has been flipped over. A year with Eren. It might be all he gets, and he might not even get all of it, but not a single part of him wants to end this thing between them and sacrifice another second of that time.

He’s already given up too much of it.

“Okay.” Eren grins, and then he’s pulling Levi along again until he’s seated at the piano. There’s _almost_ a layer of dust over the keys, but dust has a hard time surviving anywhere in Levi’s apartment considering how frequently and extensively he cleans it. But the annoying pest will stick wherever it finds a place to settle, and all the motes that Levi had chased off or missed have ended up on his untouched and most beloved object.

He wants to suggest cleaning it first, but as Eren squeezes next to him on the piano bench, much closer than strictly necessary (it’s not so small that it requires him to be pressed seam-to-seam), Levi knows he can’t put this off anymore.

The breath that leaves him is unsure and shaky, and for a moment, he wishes Eren wasn’t there. What if he’s forgotten how to play? What if he’s not as good as Eren remembers? What if a few days of irregular practice fading into no practice at all has made him so rusty that he no longer lives up to the reputation he’s spent a decade building and perfecting?

Eren’s hand lands on his back. He doesn’t say a word, just waits, but the weight and pressure of it is strangely reassuring.

The first few keys he presses are nothing. Random keys without rhyme or reason, and certainly no sense of melody. He lets out another uneven breath, and draws in a steadier, stronger one. Eren rests his cheek against Levi’s shoulder, and Levi’s hands flex and shift until they poise themselves to play something real.

“Do you have anything important to tell me before I start playing?” Levi asks dryly, glancing down at Eren just in time to watch him press his nose into Levi’s upper arm and hide his smile in the fabric of his shirt.

“No.” The word is warm and buttery and Levi lets the sound of it wash over him before he starts to [play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3G9bNphAIE) without anymore preamble.

He plays something relatively simple. Knows that getting back into practice is not running the triathlon right off the bat, but working his way back up to it, and he’s thankful for the fact that there are no important performances currently looming on his horizon.

There’s no trouble in finding the melody. While his fingers ache slightly as he plays, he doesn’t falter, he doesn’t shake. And it’s like that moment, when Eren first brought passion back into his playing. Where he never really lost this part of him, it just laid dormant until he found the strength, and courage, and inspiration to wake it up once more.

Eren stays surprisingly still during the entirety of his playing, except for the subtle and sudden slide of his hand from the below the nape of Levi’s neck to his opposite shoulder, so that eventually he has Levi in a loose, quasi-embrace. Levi finds he doesn’t mind, especially as all he confusion and broken parts of him come together in his music, into the sound he’s been too afraid to give voice to.

It’s easier, he finds, with Eren holding him through the release.

But as the music winds to a slow and reluctant close, Levi doesn’t cry. He doesn’t feel raw from the music, but rather peaceful. He closes his eyes in the resonance of the last note, breathes, and feels calmer than he has in weeks.

Then again, his playing has always been his constant. His therapy. It’s not all that surprising that it’s settled the storm inside him.

Eren’s hand tightens on his shoulder, and Levi tips his head carefully to the side until his cheek is pressed to Eren’s horrendously untidy hair.

“I missed this,” Eren hums, voice wistful.

And all Levi can think of is the warmth of Eren’s body beside him, the caress of his voice, and the way it feels to play again, with Eren right there listening to him.

He closes his eyes and smiles without inhibition, knowing no one can see.

“Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> [read, reblog, & like on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/133286992690/the-minor-fall-the-major-lift)


End file.
